


What I Got Wrong

by waltzmatildah



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:12:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU for immediately following the fight between Kelly and Leslie in episode 1x10</p><p>- - -</p><p>  <i>The door closes with a slam as she leaves. And doors always do seem to shut more solidly in those moments, don’t they? When they’re marking the end of something.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	What I Got Wrong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [citron_presse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/citron_presse/gifts).



01

Fuck.

          (and)

No.

          (and)

_Fuck no._

 

 

 

 

02

The door closes with a slam as she leaves. And doors always do seem to shut more solidly in those moments, don’t they? When they’re marking the end of something.

A finality of sorts.

It’s over.

So long.

Farewell.

A song and a dance for which he knows all the choreography

and most of the lyrics

_Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, think I’ll go eat…_

 

 

 

 

03

         a handful of narcotic painkillers.

 

 

 

 

04

In the aftermath, he counts:

_One_

_two_

_three_

_four, five, six, seveneightnineteneleven…_

_twenty._

Followed by

         nothing.

And nothing is the absolute most he deserves right now. He is nowhere near self-absorbed enough not to realise this.

(The truth hurts but it’s okay; they make pills for that too)

 

 

 

 

05

The fact that they’re fighting isn’t really a new thing. Scene: two complete strangers move in together. There are bound to be teething problems.

And toothpaste residue in the bathroom sink problems.

And whose turn is it to take out the trash problems.

Though, the thing with those problems is they can be fixed with a six pack of beer and a semi-decent DVD. 

He’s got no idea what it takes to fix ‘you’re a drug addict asshole and I perjured myself for you’ problems but he guesses something a little more substantial than Coors Light and the _How I Met Your Mother_ season three box set.

 

 

 

 

06

To understand Severide and Shay, you have to understand

_Severide_

         (and)

_Shay_

 

 

 

 

07

She is a good person. He is A Good Person.

(and there are oceans and mountain ranges and vast universes of difference between the two descriptions, I promise you)

She is a kickass human being who just so happens to be into girls and saving people’s lives. 

He is  
         A Fire Fighter  
Who is  
         Good At Sex

(The first one was never up for discussion, the second, well that’s a consequence of failed relationship after failed relationship and fierce --- unacknowledged, unrecognised --- self-protection)

Both labels work _really well_ for him.

Until they don’t.

(for reference see: now)

 

 

 

 

08

A key turns in the lock at 2:13AM. His thumping heart decelerates markedly and the dark doesn’t seem quite so

         black.

She’s standing, ghost-like, in his doorway. He doesn’t need to look, to see. A sharp intake of air that could be turned into words but isn’t.

The space at his back fills, heavy and warm and _welcome_. He hears her shoes hit the floor, one, then, 

         the other.

He’s not pretending to be asleep, but he hasn’t moved either and as she climbs beneath his sheet (not for the first time) he imagines her laying there next to him, staring up at the ceiling. 

                  Thinking.

                           Thinking, thinking, thinking.

(So loud he can almost hear them, her thoughts)

She sighs then…

 

 

 

 

09

          _“Ohhh…”_

 

 

 

 

10

The sound hits against his (metaphorically) exposed nerve endings and the muscles in his neck spasm and steal his breath

         and his ability to _function_.

He’s rolled on his side and he needs to move (move, move) but he can’t (can’t, can’t) and his fingers have clenched awkwardly and of their own accord and he wonders, fleetingly, if his shoulder is on (literal) fire because that’s what it feels like.

          “Shay.” Through teeth, clenched.

It tastes like giving up.

(Giving in)

 

 

 

 

11

She wraps herself around him. Wraps him into her.

Legs and arms and air.

Closes her fingers around his, still cramped, cramping, and moves them for him. Works away at the agony piece by piece by piece like she _knows_.

 

 

 

 

12

(Note: She _does_ know)

 

 

 

 

13

Friend.

/ frɛnd /

Noun.  
1\. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.  
2\. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.  
3\. _A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade._  
(etc)

 

 

 

 

14

He keeps his eyes forced open and unblinking in a desperate bid to make it all go away. The agony. The lies. The shame.

          The bone numbing fear.

He is already well versed in horror and he has found complete denial to be a most effective coping strategy in the past.

(obviously, this is a lie)

 

 

 

 

15

EXT. RESIDENTIAL HOUSE FIRE – AFTERNOON

CHIEF BODEN approaches LIEUTENANT SEVERIDE from behind, drops a hand onto his SHOULDER and waits until they are FACE TO FACE. There is SOOT across LIEUTENANT SEVERIDE'S FACE and he is CRYING, though he appears to be UNAWARE of this fact.

CHIEF BODEN

Kelly.

LIEUTENANT SEVERIDE

No.

CHIEF BODEN

Kelly.

LIEUTENANT SEVERIDE

(tone of voice: desperate, pleading)

No.

But the STATIC and SCREAMS that had filled LIEUTENANT SEVERIDE’S RADIO not minutes ago have already told HIM everything he needs to know. LIEUTENANT SEVERIDE pushes a hand against CHIEF BODEN’S chest. Shoves him backwards with force. Away.

LIEUTENANT SEVERIDE turns.

LIEUTENANT SEVERIDE stumbles twice.

LIEUTENANT SEVERIDE vomits.

 

 

 

 

16

          “You came back,” he says now. Redundant.

          “Yeah,” she says, and he can feel her forehead against his spine as she nods. “I came back.”

His face screws up; a physical attempt to quell the sobs that are uncurling in his lungs. 

          “I’m sorry, Shay. I’m so-” The palm of his left hand pressed forcefully against the bridge of his nose slows things down for a beat or several. Her breath is hot, hot against his skin, and a sharp contrast to the damp denim legs she’s got tucked in behind his own bent knees.

He knows he’s being the worst kind of friend right now, but he’s too wrung out and too terrified and too exhausted and too

         and too…

                   and too…

to do anything more than acknowledge it.

          “Please don’t leave me again.”

**Author's Note:**

> this has been heavily influenced by my latest obsession, [The Kings of Cool](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13544841-the-kings-of-cool), by Don Winslow.


End file.
